Archive for Justice and Law

“So while neutrality supporters here in the States are generally pleased to see that FCC boss Tom Wheeler is embracing Title II based rules, the discussion doesn’t end there. In fact, it’s only just beginning. Regulators truly interested in protecting net neutrality need to be every bit as tenacious, clever and intelligent as carrier executives who tirelessly look for creative new ways to abuse their uncompetitive telecom fiefdoms. Given the regulatory quality in most countries, that’s a damn tall order, but in the all-too-common absence of truly healthy and competitive broadband markets, there’s really no other choice.”

The warning is that the struggle will continue no matter what. The assumption on which this is based is “in the all-too-common absence of truly healthy and competitive broadband markets.” TechDirt represents the Left in this issue and they clearly illustrate the ‘attitude’ and tactics that are commonly found on that side of the issue.

“by turning the Internet into yet another heavily regulated industry, the government will not only stifle innovation and investment, but will be in a position to pick winners and losers, rather than as it is now, where competition reigns to pick winners and losers. No, the Internet is not perfect, nor are the companies involved. But, do you think it will get better, do you think minor problems will be solved, especially those problems that pretty much only exist within the minds of people who are saying “this could happen!!!!!!!!!”, by making it a highly regulated utility? “

The fact is that the proponents for regulation assume without evidence and without any significant support that I’net services are “uncompetitive telecom fiefdoms” and do this by creation of conspiracy and denial of economic realities. The basic problem is highlighted by the secrecy by which the FCC’s proposal is being held. The public will not know what is in it until after the FCC votes on it. That secrecy is part and parcel of manufactured presumptions, ad hominem argument, an army of straw men, and censorship of an questions or alternative ideas.

The persistence in trying to foist this ideology on the public, that of government knows best and much be in control, is evident and explicit by Bode. As long as that exists, and honest debate to determine real world actions of a productive nature will be difficult.

A number of things have been happening today with regard to the funding of the Department of Homeland Security. There’s been a lot of spin about that and that somehow the Republicans are blocking the funding of the Department of Homeland Security. This gives new meaning to the word “obfuscation,” I suppose, or “disingenuousness.” The truth is, the House of Representatives has fully funded the Department of Homeland Security. It’s provided the level of funding the President asked for. It’s kept all the accounts at Homeland Security as approved through the congressional process. It simply says, but, Mr. President, we considered your bill, this amnesty bill that will provide work permits, photo IDs, Social Security numbers, Medicare benefits. You can’t do that. We considered that and rejected it. So we’re not going to fund that.

There is a Democratic Party minority in the Senate acting as a solid block using filibuster procedure to prevent the funding bill from even coming to the floor for debate. It is time that they were forced to the floor to explain themselves in proper debate on the issues at hand.

In recent times federal judges have ruled that Arizona must provide driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, states such as Utah and Alabama must allow faux marriage, and a Wisconsin voter-identification law is unconstitutional. And these are just a few examples of judicial usurpations that continue unabated and go unanswered. But the answer, which needs to be given first and foremost by governors, is simple:

“No. No — I will not abide by the court’s unjust ruling.”
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What do you think “sanctuary cities” are?

They’re places where liberals have decided they’re simply going to resist federal immigration law.
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Jefferson’s position is just common sense. We cannot be a government of, by and for the people if 9 unelected Americans in black robes can act as an oligarchy and impose their biased vision of the law on 317 million Americans. That is not what the Founding Fathers intended.

The idea that the courts have review authority for legislation comes from the 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision. As with any decision, there is always the fine line. That line is being pushed and a response is gathering. This should be a major concern of the courts and a tempering influence on their reach and grab, their oligarchic tendencies. There are several cases in front of SCOTUS that are on the edge and the decisions in these cases will likely guide much more than just the ruling itself demands.

“Steven Hayward correctly spotlights the panic on the left as King v. Burwell enters its final phase, adroitly terming it working the refs. Others call it battlespace preparation. In all cases, it is establishing the Narrative, which in the case of King v. Burwell is dedicated to the simple proposition that ending Obamacare subsidies will hurt the poor, even resulting in public epidemics and possible deaths. The move is a concession that the case is legally hopeless and it is on to politics.

This makes for a worthwhile moment to pause, because the case is like a control in a science experiment. We can view in slow motion the steps in the game book.

First, delegitimize the law. …”

“Second, ignore the facts. …”

“Third, create victims. …”

“Fourth, make it easy for the press. …”

“It matters not that the allegations have no relationship to the law passed by Congress, the legal controversy committed for review by the Supreme Court or the continuing harm done by the government itself to workable alternatives. Nor to be missed are the amici briefs as self-serving calls for interviews by the press, led by prominent lawyers and institutions, with throngs ready to help on background, and the full resource of notes listed in the citations of sources. Petitioner amici briefs offer the same, but except in rare occasions, their services will be duly ignored as partisan.”

There does appear to be some understanding of the tactics being used by the Left. That means they can be exposed, dissected, and put on display for everyone to consider as to their value for proper decision making in a just society.

When the law does not respect the people, the people will have disdain for the law. Some concerns have surfaced recently about how the courts are getting involved in overturning plebiscites without clear and direct guidance in written law. The ‘gay marriage’ issue is one example. This is compounded when senior judges toss aside ethical considerations and express opinion on current cases. Ed Whelan describes Ginsburg’s Astounding Indiscretion citing a Bloomberg interview. “With the high court set to rule on the issue by June, she said it “would not take a large adjustment” for Americans should the justices say that gay marriage is a constitutional right.”

It is not the court’s role to lead the people in ‘adjustments’ of their morals. Such an approach does fit with the ideas that the ‘elites’ – in this case an oligarchy on non-elected judges – can tell the people what to think. That is symptomatic of leftist thinking.

“Saving Uber isn’t just about one company, but giving all innovative products that aim to respond to market demand a fair chance to thrive without unjust government interference. At a time when an explosion of technology is changing the marketplace virtually every day, we either innovate or we fall victim to a debilitating self-restraint that means less productivity and a lower quality of life for everyone.”

The trade licensing issue fits in here as well. Nevada is especially pernicious in its assault on small business in the many license requirements for low skill vocational activities. These are supposedly to ‘protect the public’ but that was in a day before you could easily check up on companies and individuals regarding their service capabilities and customer satisfaction.

Bruce Thornton thinks it is Sloppy Thinking About ‘Torture’ and explains why. Intentions matter. So does the actual law. Feelings can get in the way but due care needs to be taken so that they don’t mislead.

“Contrary to Noonan and McCain, and despite the dishonest rhetoric from our resentful allies, rivals, and enemies, the Senate report does not diminish America as a “force for good in the world,” a beacon of freedom, tolerance, and opportunity. That is why the U.S. is the emigrant’s favorite destination, why the U.S. is the go-to power for those countries in need when stricken by natural disasters or violent aggressors, and why the basic attitude of most of the world’s peoples is “Yankee go home, and take me with you.” The United States is in fact the “city on the hill,” the only world power in history that has used its power more for good than for ill. To think that reports of interrogation techniques used to save lives challenge the reality of American exceptionalism bespeaks a lack of confidence and faith not in our perfection, but in the fundamental goodness of America and its aims despite our occasional imperfections.”

What is not put on table in regards to intent is the intent behind the Senate report release. Those who put out the report are not very clear in regards to their motives and that tends to feed suspiciond. Arguing with ‘feel good’ rather than reason and fact don’t help much, either.

Persistence has its value but it really needs a bit of intellectual integrity to avoid damaging results. The Democrats are still trying to recover from their turn-around in 2003 in regards to the war on terror. The latest is a partisan political (the Senate is in a lame duck session of a Democratic Party majority) effort to excuse the mess. Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration, describes some of the problems in Feinstein’s tortured report — “It’s a political condemnation of CIA that thwarts interrogation of terrorists.”

“The “torture” report released Tuesday by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is the latest attempt to prove that the George W. Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on a small number of terrorist prisoners amounted to torture and that the CIA lied to congress about them. It is a political condemnation of CIA conduct meant to erect another barrier to effective interrogation of terrorists, and it is wrong in its statement of the law.”

One of the issues is the attempt to redefine torture. A U.N. convention in 1994 prohibited it but was so vague that statute was needed to define it. The interpretation of that statute is what the left is trying to distort. On the right, the conclusion is that the techniques we use in training military personnel that do not produce lasting mental or physical harm. Another issue is the idea that the enhanced interrogation techniques did not produce useful intelligence. That is disputed by those who used information gained to stop attacks are even to find OBL.

The war on the NSA, the CIA, and other components of the U.S. spy community by the Left is damaging both in terms of ability to protect and in terms of international relationships with long term allies.

Then there’s the current riot season. This also appears to be an attempt by leftist organizers to leverage current events with false propaganda in order to develop anti-capitalism protests and foment social unrest.

What separated the United States from a Peru or Nigeria or Mexico or Laos or Russia was the sanctity of the law, or the idea that from the highest elected officials to the least influential citizen, all were obligated to follow, according to their stations, the law. Under Obama, that sacred idea has been eroded. We live in a world of illegal immigration and amnesties, Ferguson mythologies, and alphabet government scandals, presided over by a president who not only does not tell the truth, but also seems to be saying to the public, “I say whatever I want, so get over it.”

“Then we learned that some true heroes had chosen to rise up and tell the truth (supported by the forensics) about the shooting. Several community members, apparently all black, stepped forward to state clearly that Brown had charged at the policeman. He had not tried to surrender as some witnesses had falsely said. These people, such as Witness No. 10, chose to tell the truth about what they saw when doing so made them subject to social scorn and physical danger. They are true American patriots who will never get so much as a nod of appreciation from Mr. Holder or the useful idiots, black and white, who can’t accept the truth and who applaud while race hustlers like Al Sharpton compare Brown to slain civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.”

There’s more: “facts caught up with the craven politicians who were trading on rumor and demagoguery” … “When a city is set on fire by looting criminals, I expect to see a furious attorney general declare that the full weight of the federal government will be brought to bear on the rioters” … “They have tried on the cloak of victimhood and found it to be very comfortable” …

The various scandals about misuse of the IRS by the administration have not yet died. Congress may not have been able to pry loose IRS records and correspondence but private lawsuits are showing fruit as a result of court orders. John Hinderaker has a good summary about how the IRS scandal rears its head.

What does this tell us? 1) Based on Mr. Goolsbee’s comments several years ago, there is every reason to believe that Barack Obama’s White House has illegally received confidential taxpayer information from the IRS. 2) Confronted by a lawsuit, the Obama administration, instead of responding forthrightly, has danced around the issue for years and erected every possible procedural barrier. 3) When finally brought to heel by a court, the administration asks for a ridiculously long period of time to produce a tiny number of documents on its own investigation of criminal behavior by the IRS and the White House.”
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“This particular story is farce, not tragedy. It will wend its absurd way through the court system for years to come, probably arriving at no conclusion until the scofflaw Obama administration is safely out of office. In the meantime, federal criminal laws governing the privacy of IRS data, like the criminal laws generally, are a source of hilarity among Democrats. Democrat cronies sip Scotch and light cigars–I hope not with $100 bills–laughing at the rest of us who work to pay the taxes that support them in the luxury to which they have happily become accustomed. I have always thought that the term “ruling class” was ridiculous as applied to the United States, but the Obama administration is causing me to re-think that view.

How many members of the Nixon administration ultimately went to jail? I think no more than five or ten. The Obama administration has violated criminal statutes with an abandon that Nixon and his minions never dreamed of. An accounting remains; I think there are a considerable number of Obama minions and cronies who should be behind bars.”

The real question is about why the administration has been able to get away with it – at least so far. That question is also gaining some attention as well.

The topic was the creation of religious excuses for laws prohibiting self defense but the same points can be made about other hot issues that tear our society apart. See the post Christianity and Family Defense on the SurvivalBlog.com:

“To misapply scripture taken out of context is the number one reason most of our churches today are apostate.”
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“let’s look at another concept– fairness vs righteousness. When a man fights another man, we tend to think that it should be a “fair” fight. If it’s a fist fight, there should be no knives. If it’s a knife fight, there should be no guns, and so forth. However, that is not how God looks at it. We should not fight unless the cause is righteous. Righteousness is the standard that God and godly men use to determine if we should even be involved in a fight.”
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“Those that are too afraid to do what is righteous and right have a special place reserved for them in hell.”
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“If you want to learn more about this concept, the first resource is, of course, the Bible. From the beginning to the end, it is filled with stories of God and God’s people righteously using aggression and violence to protect themselves and those who can’t protect themselves. It is also filled with stories of those who inappropriately used violence and aggression to further their own desires and the punishment that God reserves for such abuses.”

The Bible does not tell us to lie down and let evil be. Remember the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers? “The hymn’s theme is taken from references in the New Testament to the Christian being a soldier for Christ (wikipedia).” Christianity is not all passive and submissive.

“Full disclosure first: I was one of those military analysts regularly seen on network television until a 2008 New York Times expose accused us of succumbing to improper influences by the Rumsfeld Pentagon. Because congressional Democrats howled for our heads, it took three years, four federal investigations and more than $2 million in tax dollars before The Times report was discredited and we were exonerated.

“Ironically, we were accused of precisely the same pattern of government-media corruption at the heart of Sharyl Attkisson’s new blockbuster,”
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“Mrs. Attkisson’s phones and computers began acting strangely. As she prepared to confront Ambassador Thomas Pickering about his Benghazi report, “Suddenly the data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone.” While they might have been remaking the movie “Enemy of the State,” an exhaustive forensics analysis of Mrs. Attkisson’s iMac found evidence of classified documents planted deep in her hard drive; systematic intrusions allowing remote control of her personal files; most damning of all, “a backdoor link to an ISP address for a government computer.” It was slam-dunk confirmation of a deliberately planned government penetration, all predictably denied by Eric Holder Jr.’s Justice Department.”
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“The differences between my 2008 experience and what Sharyl Attkisson reveals in this marvelous book: Intelligence has become more intrusive, the media more ideological and the government incomparably more powerful — and all seem determined to squelch either people or issues that get in their way. Just ask Dinesh D’Souza.”

“Imagine mixing a little Marxism, a generous portion of Islamism, and throwing in bits and pieces of class envy, class warfare, and a compromised version of Christianity that Jesus Christ would fail to recognize, stir it all together with a generous portion of anger and hate thrown in, and you’ve got Black Nationalism.”
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“A political ruling elite lusting for a global order are setting us against each other. They are trying to create crisis, and racism is the easiest tool at their disposal. Generations of Americans have been trained to believe falsehoods, and to war against each other without really knowing the reason why. We are told that only white people can be racist, and all of them probably are. If someone has been handed a lousy hand in life, it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of somebody else. We have been taught we are all victims of one kind or another. Slavery, stringent laws, big corporations, our parents, Christianity, the republicans, and a whole slew of historical figures that used their wealth to get power and their power to get wealth, we are told, are the cause of all of the woes of society. . . but government will make it all better. Government will tell you how to act, where to live, what to eat, and provide a minimum mediocrity of a life through welfare services, food stamps, and a housing program. You may be miserable under the government’s programs, but everyone will be equal—equally miserable. Nobody will be able to be a greedy business owner. Government will take care of all of those things. All the government asks in return is that you raise your children in their institutions with their curriculums and their version of morality, lay down any arms you may have to protect yourself and only allow the government to be armed (it is for your protection, of course), and give the reigning political party your undying loyalty every election because if you don’t, your subsistence from them will be cut off by the heartless republicans”

“Who cares about cosmic inflation during the first seconds of the universe’s existence when black people are getting shot left and right by police officers and vigilantes?” That is what Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein, a postdoctoral fellow in physics at MIT, thought to herself upon hearing the news from Ferguson.

Are black people getting shot left and right by police officers and vigilantes?”
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“Even if the police were lying in every single case of the 410 “justifiable homicides” in 2012, then police were responsible for 3% of the murders in 2012. Who was responsible for the other 97%? Vigilantes?”
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“Of the 2,648 black victims in those cases, 2,412 of them (91%) were murdered by other blacks. (Also, blacks killed 431 whites and whites killed 193 blacks.)

Feel free to peruse the FBI numbers yourself.”

But no, even an MIT physics postdoc has drunk the kool-aid and reality (facts) don’t matter.

On Thursday, Harry Reid brought SJ Res 19, to repeal the heart of the First Amendment, to the Senate floor for a vote. The result must be considered stunning by all Americans who value their freedoms. Every Senate Democrat–every one, a 54-vote majority–voted for First Amendment repeal.
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To my knowledge, not a single Democrat, either inside or outside of the Senate, has spoken up in opposition to that party’s war on free speech.

It’s going to be an uphill climb for Democrats. In a Fox poll taken in June, a whopping 76 percent of Americans, including 90 percent of Republicans, 74 percent of independents and 63 percent of Democrats said they believed that Lois Lerner’s emails were “deliberately destroyed” by the IRS. The gaffe committed by Fallon would be amusing were it not for the reality that it is yet another indication of the endemic corruption that infests the Obama administration, their Democrat colleagues and a willfully somnambulant mainstream media. All of them seemingly prefer to run interference for one of the most powerful agencies in government, than allow the truth, no matter how inconvenient, to come out.

It will take the people to demonstrate that this corruption must end and the people are, at present, rather weak in opposing such behavior.

But how does one distinguish these offenses from the common situation in which individuals, companies, and unions give money to candidates substantial amounts of money in the hope that they will favor them in some fashion? In theory, the distinction turns on whether the recipient accepts the donation with the understanding that he or she will perform official acts in exchange.

The problem, as professor Bellin observes, is that a jury is permitted to infer such an understanding from circumstantial evidence. If the jury thinks it sees “knowing winks and nods” (these words actually appear in the jury instructions in McDonnell’s case), it can render a verdict that will send the public official to prison for a long time.

The “knowing winds and nods” standard, if one can even call it one, leaves prosecutors with enormous discretion to go after public officials they dislike for personnel reasons or want to injure for political purposes. The ridiculous, politically-motivated attempts to portray Governors Rick Perry and Scott Walker as criminals demonstrates that prosecutors will take advantage of this opening.

Such prosecutions are being used as political weapons by unscrupulous ideologues but is also a part and parcel of that ideology the presumes guilt in certain classes.

In the course of researching the Trayvon Martin case we uncovered an almost immediate pattern of racial violence which occurred as a direct result of the inflammatory race-baiting spotlighted by the grievance industry and the national media. Throughout 2012 and 2013 we found dozens of these attacks – 14 immediately after the verdict. … On August 20th 2014 the pattern begins again

The problem is that Martin and Brown are rather odd choices for hero and the act of self defense is a rather odd one to impugn. Such oddities don’t seem to impair those seeking rationalization for racial violence stoked by resentment and envy — and propaganda.

Race isn’t the only centerpoint. Consider Snowden. He is hailed as a hero in some circles yet many are beginning to realize his treason has had a big impact on Islamic terrorists efforts in covering their tracks.

Then there’s the assault on cops as if to foist responsibility for criminal behavior on them. The DOJ isn’t helping much, either.

the solution is not to call them names. Or question their patriotism. Or attack “rich people” and “fat-cat bankers.” Or tell America, “You didn’t build it.” The solution is to reform the corporate tax code by slashing the rate to 20 percent. Or better yet, abolish the corporate tax altogether. The biggest winners, by the way, would be wage earners.

So what does all this have to do with billion-dollar bank penalties? Everything. The timing is more than coincidental.
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And now, in the saddest of ironies, the Obama administration is again loosening credit standards for “affordable” home purchases and expanding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is incredibly stupid. The same mistakes are being made.

But it’s all part of Mr. Obama’s election-year strategy. Blame it all on the big boys. Pull out the class-envy cards. Rekindle divisive resentments and anger.

Follow the money. Where’s it go? Then examine the tactics. Then examine the implications and what actually happens.

The people that end up bearing the burden are not those subject to political assault and that is another dishonesty that needs to be properly addressed.

The violence in Ferguson didn’t begin when a police officer shot Michael Brown. It began when a 300 lb thug robbed the Ferguson Market and abused a clerk. The release of the video showing the obese criminal assaulting the clerk led to a terrified statement from the store manager that he had not called the police and had nothing to do with the release of the video.

“They kill us if they think we are responsible,” he said.

But that’s not all the story. Hands Up, Don’t Loot also gets into the issue of the militarization of the police visible in the response to riots using a new urban myth as an excuse for the summer games.

All systems and people are flawed, but our law enforcement and military are reactive. When we don’t talk about what they are reacting to, then there is nothing meaningful to say.

We have SWAT teams because of race riots and urban guerrilla warfare. Without Watts, the Black Panthers and the SLA, the police militarization would probably never have existed.

The militarization of the police was a response to left-wing violence and terror.

and, no, both sides are not the same. “The root cause isn’t poverty. It’s not racism. It’s the left.”

This is a long list of things that were supposed to be true one day but were false the next. But by far, the biggest and the fattest lie to come out of Ferguson is the idea repeated from every news channel that somehow black people are victims of relentless violence at the hands of white people.

As the media-sanctioned rioting, bloodshed and looting continue in Ferguson, Missouri, evidence is emerging that police shooting victim Michael Brown wasn’t the upstanding citizen that many on the Left have claimed him to be.
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Through it all, the Left is out in force in Ferguson, trying to make a bad situation worse.
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Evidence is now available that shows that Brown tried to wrest a gun away from a policeman and that he was ordered to freeze before he charged Darren Wilson and was shot.
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Before the shooting incident last weekend, Brown used violence and the threat of more violence to steal.
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the more we learn about the nature of the crime and of Brown’s character, the clearer it is to see who should really be on trial: The likes of Al Sharpton and the race-hate industry, whose lies are fueling a vicious war against civil society in Ferguson.
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And they’ll keep digging until they find evidence that vindicates the mob and the left-wing media and the community organizers from Chicago who have descended on Ferguson in order to make an example of the innocent people who live there.

They’ve got a cause. It may be poorly based because it is based on a lie but that only means they have to lie harder and work the propaganda more, that’s all.